Not in the same way, no. Medium does matter. We are physical embodied beings, and the objects we interact with matter. A dynamic digital medium will always be more distracting than a static paper one. Regardless of how much you lock the devices down, a dynamic backlit digital screen is intrinsically more distracting than pen and paper. And paper requires finer motor control than writing tablets, as the paper isn't filled with text correction technology and auto-fill. Plus the simple tactile experience is more neurally engaging than a blank screen. It takes more skill to write on paper than it does a tablet.

Most of all, pen and paper is so much better at putting a student in the right place for learning. People use tablets primarily for entertainment. Students in high school today have been using tablets since they were toddlers. We're handing them the same devices that were used to distract them at age 2, and then expecting them to be able to maintain focus. When you engage with a tablet, your brain is subconsciously expecting diversion and entertainment. When you make a choice to write something by hand, you're activating an entirely different set of cognitive frameworks than when writing on a pad.

Remember, all knowledge is social and situational. No knowledge exists in a vacuum. Human beings are not computers you just upload software into. Students often have trouble transferring specific skills from one class setting to a comparable but slightly different one. They may be able to read a graph in a math class, but struggle interpreting the same kind of graph in the context of a science class.

We are physical beings with physical bodies and physical minds. Medium matters.